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Apple Starts Locking iPhone Batteries to Stop Third-Party Repairs



Apple is looking to stop third-party repairs on iPhone batteries through a permanent warning message that appears in the device’s settings.

Third-party battery replacements on the newest iPhones will result in a message displayed in the Battery menu under Settings. “Unable to verify this iPhone has a genuine Apple battery. Health information not available for this battery,” the message reads.

The message usually means that the iPhone’s battery needs to be replaced. However, even if the new battery is a genuine one, the warning will still appear. The only way to get rid of it is for the replacement battery to be authenticated by an Apple Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider, according to iFixit.

Apple’s move to discourage third-party iPhone battery repairs was first featured in a video by the YouTube channel The Art of Repair, which said that only the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max are affected for now.

The batteries in the newer iPhones have chips that provide information such as capacity, temperature, and time before a full discharge. The chips also include an authentication feature that pairs them with the iPhone’s logic board. When the battery that is inserted into an iPhone is not the one that was originally paired to it, the warning message appears.

Apple has long been making third-party repairs difficult, such as with the controversial Error 53 from a few years ago. On the other hand, some users, such as iMore’s Rene Ritchie, believe that Apple is only seeking to prevent the kind of disaster that plagued Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7.

However, iFixit points out that with genuine components also subject to the lockdown, Apple is limiting the freedom that iPhone owners have over their own devices. The Right to Repair legislation wants to make it easier for consumers and third-party stores to fix devices, but Ritchie adds that repair shops will need to be regulated as well to prevent the very problems that Apple is trying to avoid.

In any case, whether owners of the newest models agree or not to Apple’s move, it appears that the only option for replacing iPhone batteries is to visit an Apple Store or a nearby Apple Authorized Service Provider.






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